[2.6.15] Monkey King

Monkey King- Heavenly Vault can no longer be stopped mid vault- Added an additional second in which the 2nd vault can be activated

What implications will this have change have on Monkey King's role? Where will it put him in terms of competitive viability? What (and more importantly why) should be the "next step" in making him reach a competitive state?

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Last edited by Ekamo; 08-17-2012 at 11:00 AM.

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Stops him cancelling the first Vault for an instant flip-back - letting him do his damage with no reasonable risk to himself.

The hero's potential is severely hurt by having a max-damage combo that is mostly point-and-click (or shift-queue) on a single target.

Last edited by `11411181; 08-17-2012 at 11:18 AM.

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He still is difficult to target and has very good stat growth, so to say Pebbles is always better is probably wrong to an extent. He is much less safe now, as he can't flip back and remove himself from danger; but it does force more options upon him to survive. I think it may have been warranted mechanically, but balance wise he might need some help in another field to compensate somewhat.

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With this change, every aspect of the hero is gone. I can't see the hero being picked anymore as the utility of the hero as been reduced to nothing more than mere dust.

As far as competetive viability goes? I can't see him picked at all. We've seen Kookiez dominate with the hero recently, but from now on, I can't see that happening.

Why would you nerf the utility of the hero, when it is the burst damage that people are complaining about. Does the S2 staff really collect information before they make balance decisions? Not to flame, but I simply don't understand.

Please play him before you say he's done.
He is still as good as he was before aslong you knew how he works.
You can still jump around 900 Range to kick the enemy back, so the team can attack him.
Or he can still do a pretty good combo.

Vault, move around, Dash, walk and autoattack ( since you ahve 1 sec more ), and Vault him back again, Dash again, attack. You can do pretty nice positioning of you and your enemy in 1v1.

Please play him before you say he's done.
He is still as good as he was before aslong you knew how he works.

The thing is that with this change there is really no difference between a skilled MK player and a MK player. By being forced to go through the whole vault animation, ANY hero can avoid the second vault of MK.

People that have been having MK as their top played and knows all the dimensions of MK will recognize themselves in this.

The thing is that with this change there is really no difference between a skilled MK player and a MK player.

Untrue. Knowing when to vault and what to vault on to maximize the potential of HV in any give situation will still be huge. Has the skill cap of the hero gone down? Probably. I'm still willing to bet that Kookiez still plays a better MK than Juarez from Brazil, though.

As for competitive viability...now that he can't do as much damage in as short a period of time, his competitive viability will drop; that doesn't mean he's completely unusable, although he will remain a fringe pick.

I believe this changes his playstyle to a some extent, however I don't think this instantly gibs him as a hero. Of course, this is a nerf, but I think you can still be pretty successfuly with this hero. His stat-gain is huge still and he still has the high damage output. He's just....easier to deal with now. There will still be people out there who have no idea how to deal with him.

I think this is how it was intended to work in the first place. Now that you can't abuse Vault+Slam for very high damage early on he could be quite nicely balanced. This is going to need testing though.

Extra second on the vault will be quite handy, as you can more reliably get that second vault and as the time is not really restricted so tightly it might be much more possible to try out some " new comboes"

Competitive viability? So because a hero is picked a handful of matches by a selected number of people he deserves a nerf? What about the wave of 20+ heros that are banned or picked almost every competitive match? Why don't they get nerfed as well? Oh wait they are balanced ™ and should never be stomped mid by a new hero. So we're doing game balance by favouritism now?

If MK really deserved a nerf (which I doubt he did), there were other ways of doing it. Removing the unique/skillful part of the hero is a horrible design decision and shows complete laziness by whoever is in charge of balancing in this game. You could have made his rock damage physical so the hero becomes more counterable with armor, or flast out reducing the second vault damage, but no... they erased part of the hero's potential turning it into a bland ganker with subpar damage. In all, the nerf turned MK into a low skillcap hero and that's bad for the game, not good... No offense but the game has enough noob-mode heros already.

Competitive viability? So because a hero is picked a handful of matches by a selected number of people he deserves a nerf? What about the wave of 20+ heros that are banned or picked almost every competitive match? Why don't they get nerfed as well? Oh wait they are balanced....

If MK really deserved a nerf (which I doubt he did), there were other ways of doing it. Removing the unique/skillful part of the hero is a horrible design decision and shows complete laziness by whoever is in charge of balancing in this game...they erased part of the hero's potential turning it into a bland ganker with subpar damage. In all, the nerf turned MK into a low skillcap hero and that's bad for the game, not good...

--P.S. Not a MK player.

It shows. They didn't reduce the hero's potential - he still has amazing mobility. They just removed his ability to 75% a hero in one go at level 3. He still as skill-intensive as ever; perhaps moreso, as he doesn't have insane burst anymore.

Just because a hero is always picked or banned doesn't mean they're imbalanced - sometimes it does, but more often it simply means they're just the best hero in their particular category at that particular point in time.

Honestly, Mk is like my top played hero and my favourite. But after playing him after the changes they made, hes probably going to be my least played hero. They really took the fun out of him. I agree they should of nerfed the damage instead of the utility. S2 just killed this hero. Hes mainly known for combos and combos only.

But by nerfing the damage, you pigeonhole his combo set. In order to achieve successful burst you are more or less forced to vault cancel to make up for the lost damage.

What i mean is that its about the utility and positioning, not about the damage at all. The thing that people has been complaining about though, is the damage output ( wich actually is fairly low compared to other gankers, its just his cooldowns and utility that makes him so fun / great / " should be removed from the game " )...

Not sure if he can really be compared to pebbles anymore. Lost burst capabilities and he's more about working around the mechanics of his skills. I think it'd be interesting if his ultimate got a buff in terms of cooldown reduction. I miss hearing the double "WAHOO-WAHOOs" from the combo but this hero needs to be jumping around yelling more often than he is.

His combo was incredibly unfun to play against and it had to go. Some people are so obsessed with balance that they don't even think about the fun factor --and 5 players' frustration most definitely outweights a single MK's fun.

This is a great change mechanically, and if it makes him underpowered in some way he can easily be buffed to compensate.